Spoof Tweeter Accused Of Hacking Daily Mail Group

The man running a spoof Twitter account has been accused of hacking the email of the chief executive he has been mocking.

Northcliffe Media, which is owned by the Daily Mail Group, has taken legal action in the US to have Twitter reveal the identity of @UnSteveDorkland. Steve Auckland is the name of Northcliffe’s CEO.

Twitter is set to reveal the account holder’s name on 1 August, unless they can successfully get an appeal in time.

Court documents revealed by the Guido Fawkes blog have shown how the Daily Mail subsidiary claimed at least some of the information the @UnSteveDorkland owner posted on Twitter was not publicly known. “On information and belief, the only way that such information could be obtained was by hacking into an email account at plaintiff’s [Northcliffe’s] business,” the court filing read.

Defamatory statements?

The defendant is the creator and/or maintainer of at least three accounts used to post “numerous false and defamatory statements” about Northcliffe and its employees.

“Defendant, through these postings, further disclosed information obtained by unlawful means, and further used the postings to deliberately and maliciously harass plaintiff’s chief executive officer and other employees of plaintiff.”

The court filing claimed that “highly sensitive information” about employees’ personal lives had been revealed by @UnSteveDorkland. It said the tweets had caused Northcliffe employees “to fear for their safety”.

Twitter recently said it is planning to clamp down on “horrific” abuse, following issues with so-called ‘trolls’.

The micro-blogging service gets plenty of requests from law enforcement, governments and private bodies. The US government makes more requests than any other state, according to data recently released by Twitter.

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